


The wonders of being "retired"

by Gamillian



Category: None - Fandom
Genre: F/F, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Character, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Other, Superheroes, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, aroace character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 23:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gamillian/pseuds/Gamillian
Summary: A group of "retired" superheroes taking up jobs and just generally living everyday life.





	1. Chapter 1

The job is meant to be simple. Get in, take out (either out of the building or with Speil’s shortsword) the target, get out. Amelia and Speil are on recon duty, and if they find the target they have permission to put him to sleep if he resists extraction.  
The letter came in the week prior, and it was the standard “An alias of mine has retreated to this and this location and I either want them returned or dead because they have secrets that can overthrow my company. You will be paid handsomely.” type jobs. You know, as you do on a nice Saturday morning. So, Amelia hit up the group chat consisting of her, the wife and three of her best “retired” hero friends. Speil and Wifey were the only ones available, so the job would be mainly stealth based. Not Amelia’s favorite style of job, but a fun one nonetheless.  
Speil approaches the destination from the north followed by Amelia. The farm is down a small hill, with plenty of cover at their current location. From this vantage point, they have a perfect view of the farm. It’s your stereotypical movie farm hideout, big red barn with a silo. Across from it is a small and cosy white house with a little shed. A dirt path splits the two buildings and leads to a road on the far end away from Amelia and Speil. The opposite direction leads to the farmland next to where they are hiding.  
“So, we have two options, las. Either I stay back and keep an eye on ye while you zip about jamming to yer music, or we can split up and we take a building each.” whispers the heavily accented voice next to her.  
Looking at him he’s not much, just a tall and skinny guy from Scotland, which is exactly what he wants. You can hear him frequently say, “The best deception’s are the underestimated one’s, and I love being underestimated.” He’s wearing an oversized green/grey cloak that looks like a blanket with a hood that hides most of his features, and works well as camouflage. 

“I have a feeling you’ve already decided.”  
“Aye, yer right about that one. From the looks of it, nobody seems to be home, besides our potential target. From a tactical standpoint it’s safer if we go down us two with Willow as backup when she’s in position.” As he says that seven rapid pulses of light aimed at their location signal that Willow is ready. “Speak of the devil and she’ll come to play poker!” he chuckles and scratches his head. “ As I was saying, tactically, it’s better that we don’t split up.That way the three of us aren’t spread out thin. We will be vulnerable to an ambush from this side, but Willow should be able to spot ‘em if that were to happen.”  
“I’m liking the sound of it so far. You want the barn or the house?”  
“Honestly the barn would be nice Besides, you’d be able to search the house much quicker than I ever could.”  
Nodding in agreement she pulls out a signalling mirror, responding to Willow’s flashes of light with a single pulse. She glances back at the man after receiving a confirmation signal, only to see that he’s vanished without a sound.  
“Good luck, Amelia. Make sure to look out for booby traps,.” she mumbles to herself as she opens up her phone and starts the playlist titled “gotta be swift”. “See you on the other side, Speil.” she says as time seems to slow and every sound around her is drowned out by the intro of Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics. 

Since she is considerably faster than everything in the world except people with speed abilities, Amelia takes her sweet time. She jogs down the green hills to see if she can spot anything that can detect their presence. Speil has undoubtedly looked out for something like that as well, but it’s better to be on the safe side. One satisfyingly natural hill later, she continues her jog towards the house.  
Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?  
The house is two stories tall, and the paint faded and cracked. To her left she can see Speil’s legs dangling in the air, while he’s mid somersault through a window on the ground level of the barn. Chuckling at the sight, Amelia snaps a photo.  
I travel the world and the seven seas, Everybody’s looking for something.  
There’s a slanted double door that leads to a cellar, a small shed to the left of the house, and an old front door. Amelia jogs over to the shack and tries the door. It’s unlocked.  
“Sweet, love it when that happens.” she says to herself.  
Some of them want to use you, some of them want to be used by you  
A quick run through the shack shows it’s unoccupied with an exception to a couple sacks of potatoes and animal feed. Turning around, she goes straight for the cellar door, opening it in a swift action. It’s dark. The only source of light is the sun above her.  
Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused  
“Not as sweet, but it’s fine.” Amelia scratches her head, reaches for her phone and turns on the flashlight making a sound as she pushes the button. A quick jog through the cellar shows it’s empty besides a big pile of boxes in the corner. As Amelia moves up the stairs to the surface, she remarks “Someone left here in a hurry. I wonder who the target even is?” The air around her ripples as she speeds through the room faster than any living thing could perceive.  
Amelia looks back to where Speil was mid tumble and to her dismay, he’s landed and started up the stairs. So far, no sign of life. Both the front and back doors are locked, and a quick lap around the house shows that all the windows are locked as well. “Not ideal, but it can work.”  
Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?  
Amelia takes the tactical decision of going to the backdoor, which has a big glass pane in the center of it. “This lock seems simple enough.” she says as she punches the glass and unlocks the door. “Who needs lockpicks when you can do that instead?”  
I travel the world, and the seven seas. Everybody’s looking for something.  
Amelia quickly scans the kitchen she just entered.She jogs to the front door to unlock it. The kitchen is quite large,with a stove and refrigerator. There’s a small table in the center with four chairs around it. On the far side of the room, there’s a counter that you can access from the living room. To the left of the refrigerator is the backdoor that Amelia had just entered through, and on the opposite side of the building, just outside of the kitchen, is the front door. The floor outside of the kitchen is completely carpeted, and it seems like it’s this way all the way up to the second floor.  
Dust clouds erupt from the carpet as she steps down. She can feel the wood under the carpeted floor creak and crack as she moves deeper into the house. There’s a door under the stairs that is cracked open, which she supposes leads to the cellar. “It’s oddly empty here? Has the anonymous employer fucked with us?”  
Hold your head up. Keep your head up, movin’ on  
Looking up the stairs, the second floor is dark. The eerie emptiness of the place is getting to Amelia, and she’s starting to get nervous. It would’ve been better if the place had been filled with people, at least then she could punch someone. Or lightly tap them with full speed. People don’t notice any difference, it hurts either way.  
Hold your head up, movin’ on. Keep your head up, movin’ on  
She runs up the stairs, only followed by eruptions of dust. In the first room to the right, she has a perfect view of the barn. The room has a bed neatly tucked into the corner, and posters of a child's favorite soccer team plastered on the walls. She can see Speil in the opposite building from a window on the second floor of the barn. His face covered by a cowl as he leaps off the banister that keeps people from falling down to the ground. Effective way to get down, but an unnecessary risk.  
Hold your head up. Keep your head up, movin’ on  
Turning around, she leaves the bedroom. The floor moves under the stress of having someone run at superhuman speed over it. The room on the opposite side of the hall is a bathroom.She runs to the room diagonally and admires Speil’s leap from what seems to be a study room.  
Hold your head up, movin on’ Keep your head up, movin’ on  
Three figures are standing behind Speil. She recognizes them as his mirror images. That’s weird, why would he be using those now? Amelia’s mind races with possibilities. “Wait, wasn’t there a door downstairs? There wasn’t any door that led up to the main building from the ce-” She was sprinting down before she could finish the thought. The floor under her was heating up and contorting upwards, as the walls of the house were shaking.  
Some of them want to use you, some of them want to be used by you  
The only thought going through Amelia’s head was a long and drawn out ‘Shiiit’ followed by several other profane thoughts and an instinctual terror that she hasn’t felt since she was a little girl. She sprints down the stairs as they expand and contort from their normal shape. In certain parts, the stairs have seperated and reveal a glowing ball of flame that’s still expanding. Halfway done the stairs she loses her footing and hits the ground at the bottom of the steps, making her lose focus for half a second, which is enough for the explosion to get too close for comfort.  
Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused.  
The kitchen is also mid-explosion, and she curses herself for not opening some windows. The explosion under the stairs is evolving right in front of her.She can feel the heat singing the hairs on her arms and face. Amelia ducks under a piece of flying wood and dives through a window, cutting up her arms as she rolls on the ground and launches into a sprint.


	2. Chapter 2

Approaching from the north, he can see the barn in the distance. Following in his footsteps is Amelia, whom is very quiet after saying goodbye to Willow. A quick exchange of “I love you’s” and a kiss, as was their usual way of departing from each other before a job. Seeing them do that makes Speil miss his dog, the thought of which makes his heart twinge a little. They get to a vantage point at the top of the hill and duck behind some cover.  
Speil slips away leaving a mirror image behind him, while Amelia is observing the layout of the barn. The bushes conceal him from the vantage point, and his cloak gives him perfect camouflage from distant onlookers. Staying close to the ground, he thoroughly searches for anything that isn’t a bug, flower, bush or grass; and to his great satisfaction he finds nothing.  
“So, we have two options, las.” he hears his mirror image whisper from the cover of the bushes. “Either I stay back and keep an eye on ye while you zip about jamming to yer music, or we can split up and we take a building each.” As if he would let her go in alone. “I have a feeling you’ve already decided.”  
That’s all he needed to hear. He silently creeps toward the barn, accompanied only by the faint sound of “him” confirming Amelia’s suspicion. It’s slow moving, but it also negates the risk of being observed or heard. Off in the distance, Willow signals she’s in place and ready. By the time Speil is at the bottom of the hill, mere metres away from the barn, he sees a confirmation signal from Willow’s position, meaning Amelia will be speeding about shortly. The barn itself is two stories tall, and there’s an open window on the first floor. “Perfect” he mutters, smiling and breaking out in a sprint. Just before hitting the wall, he leaps through the window and stumbles on the landing resulting in him tripping and landing on his chest. His shortsword clatters from under his cloak.  
The barn isn’t as impressive on the inside as the outside. The ground is covered in hay, which makes Speil’s leap-turned-tumble landing much softer. Off in the background he can hear thumps to the ground that resembles a stampede. A quick glance of the first floor confirms that there’s nothing there except hay, boxes and a lonely tractor in the corner. There are also animal pens set up all along the far wall of the building. Speil turns to stalk up the stairs with his back to the wall, wood creaking painfully loud under his feet.  
The slamming of heavy doors in the distance followed by shattering glass, makes him pick up the pace. Two possibilities: either Amelia taking an aggressive route into the house, or unwanted company. He makes a mental note to talk to Amelia about her stealth tactics, because generally speaking the sound of a stampede, slamming doors and breaking windows are frowned upon. However, if anyone is hiding in the barn, they’re focusing on those sounds rather than him getting winded from his landing. 

To Speil’s dismay, he’s met by rows upon rows of boxes at the top of the stairs. A quick slice at the nearest one reveals two saddles stacked atop each other and bunched up reins. At that moment he hears a siren going off in the distance.  
“First Amelia and now Willow?! I thought this was a stealth operation for fucks sake!” Speil exclaims as he wills three mirror images to search the rest of the barn. Turning around he jumps over the banister and hears an explosion when he lands. The stampede is back and louder than ever, and the barn is gone.  
“ACK! LAS, WHY DON YE FECKIN’ WARN ME NEXT TIME YER PLANNIN’ ON DOIN’ THAT?!” Speil screams to no-one in the middle of the wheat farm he’s seemingly teleported to. A sudden feeling of queasiness stirs in his stomach. The farmhouse is gone, engulfed in flames that are spreading to the barn he was in seconds before. Willow’s siren blares in the background. Off in the distance, Speil sees five groups of people, all heavily armed and clad in black, sprinting towards the barnhouse. Muttering some not so carefully picked swear words, the man runs for cover up in the hills.


End file.
